Drape's Takes

No Teacher Left Behind

Interesting conversations are still taking place about Pay Attention. Four months later, I would have thought that we'd exhausted the topic (I'm certainly getting tired of the same questions), but it has occurred to me that there are many educators still that are extremely interested in our conversation, but just don't know that they are interested yet.

I was once that kind of educator.

As I have stated earlier, I have been a techie all my life. I've also been a teacher for nearly ten years. Nevertheless, I didn't attend my first NECC until last year (I honestly didn't know it existed). Furthermore, I didn't learn about Karl Fisch's Shift Happens presentation until six months after he had created it. Therefore, my question of the month:

• How do we ensure that no teacher is left behind?

Take the email I received yesterday as an example. Gary W. stumbled upon Pay Attention the other day and decided to post a link to it on a listserv he belongs to. As a result, he discovered that while many teachers embraced its message, there were also many teachers that were less than enthusiastic. I responded to Gary's questions and concerns with the following:

As I published "Pay Attention" several months ago, there have appeared two opposing schools of thought: those that understand the message it brings and those that prefer to make excuses.

I suppose the best way to address many of your questions (and those posted on your listserv) would be to direct your attention to the conversations that have already taken place. I think a good starting point would be a blog posting that I made back in May.

Now, back to my original thought. Why is it that Gary and the multitude of teachers connected through his listserv are so late in joining the conversation? What can be done to eliminate the lag?

Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not blaming Gary. I'm blaming the process. As fast as Internet communication can be, it is simply not fast enough - especially given the fact that not every teacher is aware of our efforts. In fact, I would estimate that we've only scratched the surface. How many would you say? 10%, 25%, 50% of teachers? Do you think that over 50% of our world's educators have joined in on our conversations? Hardly!

I would appreciate your thoughts on how we can better leave no teacher behind.

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